[A]Expectations should be realistic. You will not be able to, for example,scan a hamburger and then eat the digital design. Expectations forprecision should be realistic, too. The MakerBot Digitizer is not ideal forengineers who require very high precision scanning. If you need a realisticreproduction of the tiny features on an insect’s body, the MakerBot Digitizeris not the tool for you

Awesome that such sci-fi things become reasonably affordable, but a bit sad that the fidelity is low: dimensional accuracy of 2mm means that it can produce models that look like an original, rather than ones that can readily substitute for it when interaction with other parts is required. In other words it doesn't yet fit the dream of scanning a scarce part and easily making a duplicate.

So I hope lots of people buy one and so fund the R&D on the second gen clone-o-matic that I want to buy :-)

So, time to build the 3d equivalent of the photo copier. And in the process really drive home the out of date nature of copyright...

Not really. Tools like this will demonstrate copyright will be needed even moreso.

So, you're saying the Universe designed dust so that humans won't share it due to some ideological barrier. It is temporary, because any product man creates belongs to everyone ... even if it takes time.

So, time to build the 3d equivalent of the photo copier. And in the process really drive home the out of date nature of copyright...

Not really. Tools like this will demonstrate copyright will be needed even moreso.

At the very least, they'll create a whole new level of angst in some quarters.

However, two things need to happen (EDIT before we really get there). 1) res on the scanner needs to be a lot higher and 2) the printers need to also get much higher res. Bonus points for actually getting to the point that these lower end units come with warranties. (At least Makerbot does not).

And that comes from someone who still plays with his little toy soldiers and is quite used to having to scrape and file models before they're ready for paint.

At the very least, they'll create a whole new level of angst in some quarters.

However, two things need to happen (EDIT before we really get there). 1) res on the scanner needs to be a lot higher and 2) the printers need to also get much higher res. Bonus points for actually getting to the point that these lower end units come with warranties. (At least Makerbot does not).

Hard not to see both those things happening in the next generation or two of these devices. Call it 18 months until we have <$1K devices with "good enough" resolution, maybe 0.1mm?

"Currently the resolution of the scanner on a 4 inch figurine is 0.43mm @ 0.5 degree scans, with an accuracy of +/- 0.2mm. We're quite excited about the current results, and are working everyday to continue improving the resolution.Number of points is arbitrary. A square could have 4 points or a million and it would still be a square. However, it's very easy to get between 200,000 points and all the way up into 1 million+. user selectable quality settings and number of scan passes will determine this."

Not sure how one compares resolution between triangle mesh vs point cloud, this seems to potentially be more an issue of the software. The Matterform guys have been talking a lot about their custom software, and I imagine that is a big piece of the MakerBot package as well, since their FAQ talks about how it is "optimized... to work seamlessly" with their existing software.

Again, when looking at $600 vs $1500, the details are going to be important. Speed/performance, reliability/durability, user experience, software integration... what we have on paper so far is just the tip of the iceberg, and who knows what other new entries into the market are just around the corner.

Hard not to see both those things happening in the next generation or two of these devices. Call it 18 months until we have <$1K devices with "good enough" resolution, maybe 0.1mm? .

Most of the Makerbot level machines are already advertising .1mm IIRC. It think we need at least twice as good as current resolution.

Beyond resolution, I think the other big issue is that of materials. If we get to the point of superHD rez scanners and printers, we're still inputting an onyx cube and outputting PLA, ABS, etc. usually from a single nozzle. It will be interesting to see how the materials and the complexity of nozzle design develops as well.

Hard to believe they are charging $1,400 for two line lasers, a camera, and a turntable. As someone mentioned, some of that must be going to the software. Wouldn't it be great if Makerbot released the software and hardware designs, open source? Oh wait...

The effects of their acquisition by Stratasys are already becoming evident. Witness the $150 "MakerCare" that defaults to being included. These kinds of expensive "service packages" are common in the professional marketplace, but have thankfully been absent from the desktop 3D printing market. Well, until now, I guess. Maybe these service plans have some actual value to some of their customers, but they are making it even more clear that I'm no longer in their target market. That $150 would sure buy a lot of filament.

It's worth noting that back in their open source days, Makerbot released designs for a 3D scanner that used a pico-projector and webcam to do structured light scanning (not unlike the original Kinect). You can still find the files for the frame on Thingiverse:http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4271

Of course, any mention of this alternative has been purged from the Makerbot website at this point. Maybe it's still in their wiki archive, available for download only.

I'm sure the capabilities of that original scanner were inferior, but it's amazing to see the company philosophy change so much over those 3 years.

For twice the price ($3k), the NextEngine scanner seems like a better deal, with 0.1mm resolution and full color scans. I think this is the technology that needs to be improved (made cheaper), not the laser line scanner that's been around forever. The DAVID scanner has been available for (7?) years: http://www.david-3d.com/

Even that seems to be mostly paying for software, so here's hoping someone comes up with something open source and free (or at least cheap).

Lastly I find it surprising that they are able to trademark "digitizer", but I guess I should just be lucky that they didn't trademark "scanner".

I couldn't even begin to imagine how tabletop wargaming companies are going to like this tech, other than: not much.

My earlier (fairly flippant) comment went to this, but I'll expand a bit.

Companies like Games Workshop derive a large part of their income from small figurines that they mass produce and then sell on at a huge markup. Their audience is generally young boys who have grown up in a world where you can freely download any media and share it with your friends. We're moving rapidly towards a time when a really good, highly detailed scan is torrented and everyone knows someone who will knock out 50 copies for material costs plus a bit of money.

How can a company that produces collectible items like this survive? They could move to a ever more detailed models, but there's a limit of what they can manufacture. The equipment needed to accurately clone their models is getting better and cheaper every year.

Is the answer to cut their retail prices drastically and heavily advertise their 'genuine' products?

I couldn't even begin to imagine how tabletop wargaming companies are going to like this tech, other than: not much.

My earlier (fairly flippant) comment went to this, but I'll expand a bit.

Companies like Games Workshop derive a large part of their income from small figurines that they mass produce and then sell on at a huge markup. Their audience is generally young boys who have grown up in a world where you can freely download any media and share it with your friends. We're moving rapidly towards a time when a really good, highly detailed scan is torrented and everyone knows someone who will knock out 50 copies for material costs plus a bit of money.

How can a company that produces collectible items like this survive? They could move to a ever more detailed models, but there's a limit of what they can manufacture. The equipment needed to accurately clone their models is getting better and cheaper every year.

Is the answer to cut their retail prices drastically and heavily advertise their 'genuine' products?

Well except that for the results desired both the 3D scanner and printer, not to mention materials are going to themselves have to come down quite a bit. So that future is still quite a way.

Yeah - the precision of this tool is lower than ideal for some uses, but its important to remember that when using early photo scanners you always had to follow up with some digital cleanup in photoshop or whatever (an you still do if you want a really high quality scan of the photo). The same will be true here, I suspect you'll need to clean up the mesh, at this point you can adjust the exact size to fit precicely. But it will need some skills with a 3D package like blender, which isn't trivial to use. I'd still like one, in combo with a 3d printer, this could be lots of fun.

I couldn't even begin to imagine how tabletop wargaming companies are going to like this tech, other than: not much.

My earlier (fairly flippant) comment went to this, but I'll expand a bit.

Companies like Games Workshop derive a large part of their income from small figurines that they mass produce and then sell on at a huge markup. Their audience is generally young boys who have grown up in a world where you can freely download any media and share it with your friends. We're moving rapidly towards a time when a really good, highly detailed scan is torrented and everyone knows someone who will knock out 50 copies for material costs plus a bit of money.

How can a company that produces collectible items like this survive? They could move to a ever more detailed models, but there's a limit of what they can manufacture. The equipment needed to accurately clone their models is getting better and cheaper every year.

Is the answer to cut their retail prices drastically and heavily advertise their 'genuine' products?

For some of them? Possibly, though I could also see them charging for a detailed 3-D model from their website, similar to how many RPG book publishers have started offering their books as .pdfs at reduced cost. Keep in mind, too, that unless you have a very well-tweaked machine and a very small nozzle, you're generally going to get a worse surface finish than the injection-molded products. For other, small products, they can offer them in materials that are still difficult to 3-D print at home in, like pewter. Will they need to change their business models, eventually? Sure. Will it be the end of them? Probably not.

I couldn't even begin to imagine how tabletop wargaming companies are going to like this tech, other than: not much.

My earlier (fairly flippant) comment went to this, but I'll expand a bit.

Companies like Games Workshop derive a large part of their income from small figurines that they mass produce and then sell on at a huge markup. Their audience is generally young boys who have grown up in a world where you can freely download any media and share it with your friends. We're moving rapidly towards a time when a really good, highly detailed scan is torrented and everyone knows someone who will knock out 50 copies for material costs plus a bit of money.

How can a company that produces collectible items like this survive? They could move to a ever more detailed models, but there's a limit of what they can manufacture. The equipment needed to accurately clone their models is getting better and cheaper every year.

Is the answer to cut their retail prices drastically and heavily advertise their 'genuine' products?

Well except that for the results desired both the 3D scanner and printer, not to mention materials are going to themselves have to come down quite a bit. So that future is still quite a way.

I think you missed "when a really good, highly detailed scan is torrented".

I couldn't even begin to imagine how tabletop wargaming companies are going to like this tech, other than: not much.

My earlier (fairly flippant) comment went to this, but I'll expand a bit.

Companies like Games Workshop derive a large part of their income from small figurines that they mass produce and then sell on at a huge markup. Their audience is generally young boys who have grown up in a world where you can freely download any media and share it with your friends. We're moving rapidly towards a time when a really good, highly detailed scan is torrented and everyone knows someone who will knock out 50 copies for material costs plus a bit of money.

How can a company that produces collectible items like this survive? They could move to a ever more detailed models, but there's a limit of what they can manufacture. The equipment needed to accurately clone their models is getting better and cheaper every year.

Is the answer to cut their retail prices drastically and heavily advertise their 'genuine' products?

Well except that for the results desired both the 3D scanner and printer, not to mention materials are going to themselves have to come down quite a bit. So that future is still quite a way.

I think you missed "when a really good, highly detailed scan is torrented".

And we have the current situation of highly, variable quality media content, never mind the well poisoning. Plus people like being in control. Waiting on others can be a bit maddening for some especially when availability is determined by popularity, rather than what the individual wants.

Edit: I know the thought is about collectables from the company perspective, but what about from the customer perspective that desires unique, limited edition collectibles?

Wouldn't it be possible to do multiple scans and "average" or "stack" them?

Granted, this is something I would expect to happen in software during the initial scan, but even so.

According to the Makerbot blog, that's what this does with the two lasers. I think it scans the entire thing with one, then with the other, and combines the meshes.

The DAVID software lets you scan the object with the laser by hand, so I guess it just keeps combining the data. The website suggests that you can just keep waving the laser around to gradually improve the resolution (with diminishing returns I imagine).

To be fair it looks mostly like a scaling problem. The model looks squished laterally (stretched vertically). That seems like it would be easy to correct by measuring the actual object and comparing the proportions to the 3D model. The 3D model could then be scaled in only the required directions.

Still, that's a lot of work considering this costs $1400. I am surprised it is off by so much, I guess that is where the +/- 2mm comes in. I'm curious about the source of that error, which seems to be greatly reduced in the cheaper Photon scanner (+/- 0.2mm). Maybe it's because the Photon actually moves the laser up and down?